Mild Winter wood usage

[spike60]

I have just *so much* wood here I can get, not gonna sweat it at all. I'll get as far ahead as I want to, I am some years out now, especially if the winters keep staying mild.

Yeah, the other oddity for me is that this mild winter has taken place the same year that I've scored the most wood I've ever had. Wood lot my buddy was logging on was so close to the house that I just kept bringing it home. (32 truckloads in my Dodge Dakota) I figure I've got 3 years worth right now.

 

[MacLaren]

Yeah, the other oddity for me is that this mild winter has taken place the same year that I've scored the most wood I've ever had. Wood lot my buddy was logging on was so close to the house that I just kept bringing it home. (32 truckloads in my Dodge Dakota) I figure I've got 3 years worth right now.

Wow. Now that must have been really nice Bob. It being so close and all. Good deal man.

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk

 

[zogger]

100-year-old farmhouse... zero (I do mean zero) insulation, old wooden framed windows and non-insulated doors.
I can count on my fingers the number of days we didn't let the morning fire burn completely out.
I think the wife added fuel to the wood burner during the day only 5, maybe 6 times all winter.
There's been several nights I didn't even start an evening, or night fire.
The abundant sunshine and lack of wind we've had this year gets the credit... the living room, dinning room and kitchen all face to the open south, the solar energy has kept us more than warm enough most afternoons and into the evening.
We have not had "*some* fire all the time"... I'd be willing to bet we've had just as many hours without a fire, as we've had with a fire this year.
I went three days straight without even lighting a fire in January... and several 24-hour periods without one.
Last night was the first evening in three days I've lit a fire... and with 60's and 70's predicted for next week I may not light a fire all week, or even longer (heck, maybe I'm done this year).
It's just friggin' crazy the small amount of wood I've burned this year... and 80% of it the so-called "shoulder season" wood.

It's real wet here, high humidity. Running a little fire helps keep that at bay in the house, keeps that clamy feeling out. Plus, my GF and I are older, she in particular because of arthritis really can't handle even what we outdoors guys think of as normal good cool working weather. She has to wear gloves to keep her hands warm just so she can function at all, most of the fall/winter/early spring.

I can handle the cold a lot better than she can, but still not the same as when I was a younger guy and pre frostbite experience. Got it bad once, thought there was a good possibility I was gonna croak. I didn't but for a few days it royally sucked, then had a long time for skin to grow back after it rotted off. I tried a few more winters up north..had to give up. I'd still be living up there, but just can't quite cut it any more. Here is cold enough for me now. Our winters get in the teens for cold, once in awhile single digits and I have seen below 0 a few times in the last almost 3 decades now.

When I lived in maine in my little cabin I cooked with wood, meaning I burned year round, so it is hard to say when I actually stopped heating, a lot of times in the fall and spring it was just making breakfast and dinner and that was plenty of heat for all day, then let the fire go out. In the true summer though, I dragged the stove outside to the yard. If it was raining real hard, I would cover it and cook on a camping alcohol stove inside. So maybe..recalling...8 months stove inside, four months outside.

 

[farmboss45]

Last year between two stove I went through almost 6 cords, this year will be on tract for 4.5, but we heat strictly with wood, one stove upstairs and one in the basement apartment. There has been a fire almost constant all year since October, maybe not full bore, but sumwhat of a fire. Does not hurt my feelings, as the wet, warm winter here has made it hard to get into the woods.

 

[Fred Wright]

....She chews me out because I don’t cut up the small branches and such… Her words, “If’n I’m gonna’ be out here in the weeds and bugs, sweatin’ my azz off, I will waste not!!” She sees each piece of firewood as hard earned dollar$, and won’t burn a single one if it ain’t absolutely needed.

Ya’ just gotta’ love a women that “gets it” don’t ya?!

Yes indeed. The SheWolf got me hooked on cutting up tops and dragging branches to the yard for kindling. The small pieces from branches make great starter wood. Aside from a stump there isn't much left of a tree out here when it's all said and done.

She tried to talk me into bucking and splitting an old, punky log last year. The darn thing had toadstools growing all over it. She said it would make for great kindling or starter wood. I said the stuff would burn up like newspaper.

She replied well, sure. It'll burn nice and hot. That's what we want.

Gotta love 'em.

 

[zogger]

Yes indeed. The SheWolf got me hooked on cutting up tops and dragging branches to the yard for kindling. The small pieces from branches make great starter wood. Aside from a stump there isn't much left of a tree out here when it's all said and done.

She tried to talk me into bucking and splitting an old, punky log last year. The darn thing had toadstools growing all over it. She said it would make for great kindling or starter wood. I said the stuff would burn up like newspaper.

She replied well, sure. It'll burn nice and hot. That's what we want.

Gotta love 'em.

Really, that's cool. Waste not. I got hooked on milking trees out when I first started cutting wood, as it was all with a bowsaw. I thought "no way am I leaving this stuff, if I can't cut it easy with a saw, wait until dry, bust it up with my hands".

Been doing that ever since, even after switching to chainsaws. Cut small, along with medium and large, and you wind up stacking BIG.

Ya, takes more time...good excuse to run a chainsaw more, too....bigfun! Small saws, big saws, it's all saws!

It *adds up* in the stacks!

The guys who bucket trucked down the branches in the yard were gonna come back with a backhoe and push all the branches into the field and burn them! OAK! A lot of those chunks are 10-12"! I go NO WAY JOSE, I'LL DEAL WITH IT, THANKS. Five cords now of *decent* wood, with about another half cord of small stuff to go, then what is left over I'll stack way in the back yard and go break it up next summer, throw the small chunks into these plastic crates I get for free.

There's no telling how much wood just gets burnt up in piles or ignored in this nation daily, because it isn't main trunk wood, big blocks. Megajoules worth.

 

[greengiant]

Same story here, much warmer all season. I'll be running through 4 cords instead of 6 this year. It's not all weather related though; I did some insulating and we had 3 new windows put in this fall, including a 60 ft^2 bow window in the room with the stove. I used to put plastic on the old 1960's window which was all around a pain, and even blankets on the floor of it to slow the cold down. That one new window might save me close to a cord of wood a year if I had to guess. The rest would be due to the warm year. I think one reason I use that much wood is because it's a ranch and I'm only heating the top floor. We've done some windows, both doors, and insulated the attic crawls space, but heat just wants to rise.

All in all, after heating 99% with wood for 7 years now, I was finally 2 years ahead on my cutting, and now I'm more like 3 years. All my stacks are full and then some ( or will be by Summer) which means I can take a rest from gathering wood and enjoy summer more with the family. In fact, I filled my covered back porch with about 2 cords in mid January. At this point there is still about 2/3 of that left and I might have to MOVE IT again:msp_smile:

 

[lfnh]

Usage more on the lines of spike60. Only addition to that is a long cool and wet spring like last year where a lot can get burned in a couple of months.

On another note that V8titan post started here's long long range for 2012-2013. Similar to past fall/winter. let's hope.

Climate Prediction Center - Seasonal Color Maps

 

[planman]

Pocono Mountains

6 cord so far this year on a 2200 sq foot 2 story house wife had it up to 80 most of the time on first floor, my office is upstairs and was 68 most of the time. Better than the $5000 we spent on oil last year keeping her warm.

 

[zogger]

6 cord so far this year on a 2200 sq foot 2 story house wife had it up to 80 most of the time on first floor, my office is upstairs and was 68 most of the time. Better than the $5000 we spent on oil last year keeping her warm.

Five grand! I GUESS SO. Dang


Boss just told me his propane just went up two grand a tank! he has three whopper tanks for the broiler houses, not sure think 20 thou gallons apiece, somethng like that. big. big like you wouldn't want to be within a few iles if any of them went off....that big. And they don't offer "buy cheap in the summer, get it delivered in the winter" rates any more. He's beyond annoyed....

The days of cheap conventional energy are OVER and ain't never ever coming back, either, electric, fuel oil or diesel, gasoline, propane, natgas, you name it. Wood (and sunshine/solar/wind) are the last affordable energy source for us non billionaires, something we can get that some cartel can't rape us in the wallet with. I don't care how much "drill, baby drill" crap goes on, it still ain't gonna result in cheap energy for us peons.

Wood=stored solar, deposited in the bank, accruing interest as it seasons. The best there is...

 

[alleyyooper]

Although the temps have been mild and above normal nearly all winter it has been really damp.
It is a dampness that can seep into your bones and chill ya. It is also a dampness that gets into homes, many friends have expessed how they have used about as much gas, fuel oil and electric to keep the dampness down in their homes.

We don't have that problem, wood heat drys a home out in the winter if you don't keep a humidifier going or some thing of the sort.
Our wood burning furnace has a 5 gallon pot, a 4 quart kettle and a couple of 2 quart pots on top I keep full of water.
I've burnt about 3/4 of this pile of wood so far.

It had a lot of White Pine and old well seasoned Elm in it so I burn that during the day.

I have also burnt up the trailer load of wood pictured here and nearly the whole first row of wood so far. It is good seasoned Ash killed off by the Emerald Ash Bore. It is from the woods of my neighbour who doesn't burn wood but wants the dead ash gone.
I have a bunch in my woods too but only cut the stuff that comes down in wind storms so far.

taken 11-11-11

Al